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Alamo. The name alone evokes powerful images depicting the heroic battle fought
in 1836. While it was a real event, it is in the shadow world of myth that
the battle is most often recalled.

The body of Alamo literature is immense, but because of the nature of the source materials careful scholarly studies of the historical Alamo are few. Most of them reflect only the victors' side of the story, though many of the Mexican accounts are remarkably rich in detail.

Among them is that of alleged Mexican soldier Felix Nuñez, written in 1889 by an unnamed newspaperman from an interview with George W. Noel who claimed to have interviewed Nuñez. Many chroniclers of the battle have incorporated this narrative into their works, most to describe the death of David Crockett and to document William Barret Travis's supposed attire.

Conflicting stories regarding Crockett's death began to circulate almost
immediately after the battle. In a March 29, 1836, letter Texian E. Bowker
recounted the fall of the Alamo to his parents, telling how the congressman
reportedly met his fate: "he was found dead with about 20 of the enemy with
him and his rifle was broken to pieces [and] it is supposed that he killed
at least 20 or thirty himself. " In her book Texas, which appeared in the
summer of 1836, Mary Austin Holley maintained that Crockett was one of seven
defenders found alive after active combat had ended. These seven "cried for
quarter" but when told that none would be given Holley stressed, "they continued
fighting until all were butchered. " A number of contemporary Texas letters
and newspaper accounts recounted Crockett's execution to highlight their presumptions
of Mexican savagery. For the remainder of the nineteenth century and throughout
the first half of the twentieth, the notion that Crockett survived the fighting
and was later executed did not seem to bother most people; few cared one way
or another.1

In 1956, however, Walt Disney introduced San Angelo, Texas, native Fess Parker as "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier," in a television series that became an overnight national sensation. In the Disney version Crockett, clearly intended to be a role model, did not die on screen as it was believed that seeing their hero actually killed would unsettle America's children. Instead the image of "Davy" flailing away with his clubbed rifle slowly fades into one of the Lone Star flag. The 1960 John Wayne film had Crockett not only go down fighting, but blowing himself up with the Alamo's powder magazine in one last act of heroic self-sacrifice.

That Hollywood had transformed Crockett into a pop icon perhaps helps to
explain the bitter controversy surrounding the publication of two studies.
In 1975 Carmen Perry translated and edited the diary of Mexican officer José
Enrique de la Peña. Then Dan Kilgore, a former president of the Texas
State Historical Association, thoroughly analyzed all of the extant versions
of Crockett's death in his carefully researched 1978 monograph, How Did
Davy Die. Both works stated that Crockett survived the battle only to
be executed on Santa Anna's orders. A howl of protest arose. "For many people,"
historian Paul Andrew Hutton surmised, "Crockett had become part of their
self-identification as Americans, and to suggest that he did not perish in
true Hollywood style was a blow to their fragile psyches. "2

The Nuñez account has been employed repeatedly to support the tradition
that Crockett died in the thick of battle. Despite an overwhelming body of
evidence to the contrary, even trained historians continue to use the Nuñez
version to describe Crockett's demise. The standard secondary study, Walter
Lord's A Time to Stand, strongly intimates that the "tall American"
whose fall Nuñez descried could well have been "Crockett himself,"
and as recently as 1986 historian Ben Procter employed the account in The
Battle of the Alamo, published by the Texas State Historical Association.3

Lay historians seem even more unrelenting, resentful of any perceived plot
to tarnish their hero. In their revisionist study, Roll Call at the Alamo,
Phil Rosenthal and Bill Groneman concoct the "possibility that the Mexicans
incorrectly identified one of the [executed] Texans as Crockett" and use the
Nuñez account as the linchpin for their argument that the former congressman
died fighting. Rosenthal and Groneman then assert that the Nuñez account
was "direct and to the point" and when "tied together" with the Rafael Soldana
and Susanna Dickinson accounts, neither of whom ever claimed to witness the
old bear hunter's death, makes "a good case for Crockett to have lived up
to his legendary status.4

Newspaperman Bob Boyd was almost belligerent in his certainty. "Davy Crockett died fighting at the Alamo," he asserts in his sparsely documented treatment:

He did not surrender. He did not ask for quarter. He did not beg for his life. He died fighting back-to-back with two of his Tennessee comrades. Before they had finished, a pile of dead enemies, estimated at between 14 and 24, lay around them.

The "evidence," Boyd alleged, is "undeniable. " All this before citing Susanna
Dickinson who reported seeing Crockett's mutilated corpse as she was led from
the fort after the battle. Mrs. Dickinson, however, never claimed to be privy
to the exact circumstances of Crockett's death. Boyd then seeks to bolster his
argument by claiming that other Mexican accounts "confirm" that his hero's death
was "valiant and vengeful. " Although he fails to identify who the others were,
it is likely that the Nuñez narrative is one on which Boyd would rely
for confirmation. Seeking to refute "international historian and linguist" Richard
Santos's protestation that Crockett did not die "fighting a la John Wayne,"
Austin writer Arthur G. Milton cited Nuñez as proof to the contrary.
5

Nor does the debate show any sign of cooling. In the March 3, 1990 edition
of the San Antonio Express and News, Santos took Texas writer Wallace
0. Chariton to task for employing the Nuñez account, claiming that
it "is so full of errors and exaggerations that it is inconceivable that anyone
would give it any consideration whatsoever. " Then, in a slur directed at
Chariton, Santos self-righteously intoned: "Numerous other self-proclaimed
historians have done likewise.6

Firing back, Chariton defended the Nuñez account. Chariton admitted
that the narrative had its problems but postulated that even if Nuñez
was not present at the battle he "still could have gotten correct information
from an actual participant and then conveniently used that information for
his own purposes. Nuñez may have been a scoundrel," Chariton insisted,
"but it does not automatically follow that what he said can be totally ignored,
especially if there is other fragile evidence that seems to corroborate what
he said. " He concluded that in examining questionable sources he and many
other Alamo scholars preferred to "cut around the fat in the survivors' stories
in the hope that we can find a little historical meat left on the bone. "
Chariton, however, failed to mention what other "fragile evidence" corroborates
Nuñez, nor did he reveal what "meat" he found in the tale.7

Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, "The Fall of the Alamo," oil., 1903. Courtesy Archives Division, Texas State Library

The account has also worked its way into graphic depictions. In
1901 Dallas businessman James T. DeShields commissioned San Antonio
artist Robert Onderdonk to paint an Alamo scene portraying "battle,
murder and sudden death. " The result was "The Fall of the Alamo,"
finished in 1903. Probably the most reproduced of all Alamo images,
the painting captures the moment just before a Mexican officer smites
Crockett with his saber. Much research is apparent and it is probable
that Onderdonk had read the 1889 account. Recently, the 1987 film
"Alamo The Price of Freedom" incorporated a scene
wherein a Mexican officer deals Crockett "a deadly blow with his
sword, just above the right eye.8

Lord also cited Nuñez to support his allegation that Col. William Barret
Travis wore a "homespun jacket of Texas jeans," which a critical reading of
the account reveals would have been impossible. Still, many writers still depict
Travis attired in such garb. Even the meticulous Paul Andrew Hutton, who has
established a reputation as a debunker of Alamo folklore, himself perpetuated
the fable that Travis was "clad in homemade Texas jeans." The lingering influence
of Nuñez is apparent.9

Its inclusion in many standard studies notwithstanding, the Nuñez account
is infested with errors. Numerous inconsistencies between Nuñez's narrative
and others should have raised questions among serious historians. He was presumably
questioned fifty-three years after the fact and in several places his memory
was faulty. Worse still, the words often do not seem to be those of Nuñez
himself. The article first ran in the San Antonio Daily Express on
June 30, 1889, and was later reprinted in the July 12, 1889, edition of the
Fort Worth Gazette. It appears, however, that the San Antonio reporter
did not even bother to talk to Nuñez, but accepted Noel's version of
what the old man apparently had told him. At best, the story comes to us thirdhand.10

There is, of course, another, more disturbing, possibility; the entire account
could well be a fraud. Nuñez would have been well acquainted with local
Alamo lore and merely fabricated his tale for gullible listeners. One noted
scholar has proclaimed the entire narrative "worthless if not bogus. " Certainly
there is little in the story that could not have been obtained by local hearsay
and other Alamo accounts available by 1889.11

If the account is so patently unreliable, why should anyone bother to edit and reprint it? There are many reasons. The account is difficult to locate, even in some of the best archival repositories. The Nuñez account has not been reprinted in its entirety since 1889, and it has never been critically edited.

Even so, the major obstacle is not that so many people have been unable to use the Nuñez account, but rather that so many have used it uncritically. Practically everyone who ever cited the account failed to examine it carefully, accepting it at face value. Many who had never seen the original account simply repeated others who did, thereby continuing to distort the historical record.

The Nuñez account is so clearly wrong on so many vital points it would be folly to use any part of it to support an argument. Yet, it has been used repeatedly by reputable historians, a fact that reflects how little true primary research has been done on the battle of the Alamo. One can determine how much, if any, of the Nuñez version is accurate only by comparing it with other, more reliable, accounts.

The version that follows is the one that appeared in the San Antonio Daily Express. It is as worm eaten as Nuñez claimed Travis's jacket to be. By exposing the account to critical examination the editor hopes that future Alamo scholars will avoid past errors and present a more accurate picture of a shining moment in Texas history-one that has no need of distortion to add to its luster.

Notwithstanding a few minor corrections and updates, this is the complete text of the article that appeared in The Southwestern Historical Quarterly (July 1990). Alamo de Parras extends its gratitude to Ron Tyler, Ph.D., director of the Texas State Historical Association, for his kind permission to reprint the piece.